“An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon,” said Trotter, a mother of six. “And the peace of mind she has … knowing she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened violent criminals.”

For all her concern over the little woman, it seems that Gayle Trotter didn’t even get the right weapon. The Little Woman fired a shotgun, not an AR-15. Additionally, Trotter has worked against the Women Against Violence Act WAVA) that is before Congress now.

According to Huffingtonpost.com:

In 2012, she wrote on the Independent Women’s Forum’s blog that VAWA infringed upon the rights of men who were falsely accused of domestic abuse. The law would also embolden “false accusers,” who would take “needed resources like shelters and legal aid … denying real victims of abuse access to these supports,” she wrote. Trotter and the forum characterized VAWA as “reckless demagoguery.”

I guess there is not concern over those who might get falsely accused and shot with a scary-looking gun.

I have been accused of “attacking” Ms. Trotter, which I had not done–just her message. Now I think I will “attack” her. What kind of flim-flam is she trying to pull off? She can’t even tell the story right. Does that classify as lying before the Senate? I think we need an honest broker here.

No one wants to ban your average shotgun. That seems to be the most difficult concept of all.

What was insulting was how she was heckled when she said “Guns are the great equalizer during a violent confrontation.”

I am taken aback by the effort to dismiss the speaker and her message. I’m sure you agree that the ability of a woman to defend herself and others should be a part of the conversation.

And yet, “CATO Institute Policy Analyst and Denver University Professor David Kopel expressed a similar sentiment to Trotter in written testimony, pointing out higher violent crime rates in other countries with strict gun control laws, in particular against women.

“A woman in Great Britain is three times more likely to be raped than an American woman,” Kopel’s testimony reads. “Overall, the violent crime rate in England and Wales is far above the American rate. Using the standard definition for the four most common major violent crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.”

We aren’t talking about Great Britain or any place else other than Ms. Trotter not being truthful.

She was attempting to sensationalize her own point of view rather than just present facts. Perhaps she should have applied some of her women and guns sentiment to more opportunities for women to shoot and purchase firearms in non-threatening environments. (just as an example) Rather talking about scary looking guns being a woman’s best defense.

I didn’t hear her being heckled although after that statement, I am not sure why she wasn’t.

These awful doctors and their prying must be the reason that the gun nuts don’t want physicians to ask their patients if they have a gun in the house. They could collect data that the NRA doesn’t like.

Furthermore, her assertion about women being more likely to raped in Britain as a result of strict gun control was based on what facts? Where is the direct cause and effect study? yeah, there isn’t any I bet.

The Harvard study admits that statistics on the use of guns for self-defense is unreliable — ithe study is really just a review of previous studies and interviews with gun experts. Their results appear to rest mostly on a single study by Kellerman and coauthors(1993) which has been heavily criticized for its methods and data sample (i.e. over 50% of the cases involved people with arrest records). it focuses entirely on body count, but does not measure the number of times intruders were scared away or wounded.

So I do not think that Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post was being entirely forthcoming.

@kelly_3406
Funny how, if you study how people were killed, and that the fact IS that we have a high murder rate that involves a gun, and that most murders happen in a “non-random” fashion, you will get a high correlation to murder and gun ownership. Fancy that. However, our overall murder rate is not the highest, and our violent crime rate is much lower than most of Europe. And Britain’s reporting is about to get more accurate because they have been downplaying their violent crime rate for years. And be aware that murders are only counted in England once a conviction for murder has been achieved.

Notice how these studies don’t control for the hundreds of millions of gun owners that have NOT been murdered. Then that ratio drops precipitously. Or they don’t control for the hundreds of thousands of defensive uses that do not involve firing the gun.

Elena is right. There might not be a direct cause and effect study on the number of women being raped in England vs America. But, if those women were armed, I can surmise that there would be fewer rapes….and rapists. The fact is, England has a much higher violent crime rate than the US. While the low number of armed people in England MAY contribute to that, also important is the new English philosophy that self defense is not a proper reaction and to let the authorities handle it. One must have a proper mindset before you have to defend yourself, and that is being erased.

But…the argument isn’t whether women (or men) should have guns for home protection or to carry on their person in public. What is being proposed is an “assault-type” weapons ban (really a selected high-powered semi-automatic rifle ban), a high capacity magazine ban, and universal background checks. None of these changes to the law would affect the ability of women (or men) to protect themselves in their home. Believe me, if someone breaks into your home, you don’t want a rifle, you want a pistol or even a short barrel shotgun with a wide-pattern shotgun shell. The shotgun doesn’t really need to be aimed, and the pistol is a lot lighter and more maneuverable in close quarters than a rifle with the same stopping power, particularly with a hollow-point round.

This whole home protection angle is a red herring, whether you agree with the “assault weapons” ban or not.